Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi: Time For A Critical Look

The behavior of Saratoga Springs Mayor Ron Kim, Public Safety Commissioner James Montagnino and Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran has overshadowed equally troubling problems with other members of the Saratoga Springs City Council.

Minita Sanghvi, as the Commissioner of Finance, is supposed to be the watchdog of city spending. She is also in charge of the IT department and is supposed to manage the city’s website. “Supposed to” are the key words here.

Unfortunately, Commissioner Sanghvi, in spite of her self-promotion for allegedly planning the city’s finances into the future, has yet to demonstrate this pledge. She also has routinely dismissed concerns over the chronic problems with the functioning and design of the city’s website, which is her responsibility as well.

How Will The City Find The Money To Pay The New Firefighters?

At the beginning of 2022, when the current Council members took office, the city applied for and was awarded a federal “Safer Grant.” This grant was for $4.1 million dollars to pay for sixteen new firefighters for three years. The catch is that the grant requires the city to support these new positions for an additional two years following the end of the grant. The cost to the city for those two years will run over $3,000,000.00.

At the time the grant was awarded over a year ago, I expressed great concern over how the city would absorb these future costs. This post went into the issues in some detail. Of particular note were comments by past Commissioner of Finance Michele Madigan, who argued that the city would need to start immediately to put aside money to help address the issue before the inevitable crunch in 2026 when the grant ran out. This is advice that Commissioner Sanghvi has apparently ignored.

I wrote to Commissioner Sanghvi in 2022 when she was preparing the 2023 budget, asking what she was doing to prepare the city to be able to meet this enormous looming financial obligation. When she did not answer, I asked to meet with her. This time she responded but told me that she would meet with me in two months after the budget was adopted. That delay was convenient because it meant that she did not have to address the issue when she could actually begin to do something about it. In fact, I do not consider it unfair to speculate that she did not want to discuss it because she had no answer. Just maintaining the existing budget required her to raise taxes and it would have been more than inconvenient to have to explain where another $3,000,000+ would come from if they had to be paid that year. To date, she has yet to acknowledge the threat this represents to the city finances and cope with the need to immediately take steps to address this.

Ms. Sanghvi recently went to the media about the city’s finances. In the article, she went on at some length about how she was busy establishing long-term plans regarding the city’s finances.

This prompted me to write her about how she was planning to pay the millions of dollars she would need to comply with the requirements of the Safer Grant for firefighters.


From: john.kaufmann21@gmail.com
Sent: Monday, April 17, 2023 12:10 PM
To: ‘Minita Sanghvi’
Cc: ‘ron kim’; james.montagnino@saratoga-springs.org; jason.golub@saratoga-springs.org;
dillon.moran@saratoga-springs.org
Subject: Fire Fighters

The cost for the city to maintain sixteen firefighters for two years after the grant for them runs out will run approximately $3,000,000.00. What actions have you taken, and do you plan to take to prepare for coming up with this money to cover these costs?


After several weeks of silence, it was apparent that Commissioner Sanghvi was not going to answer my email, so I attended the May 6, 2023, meeting to ask her in person.

In this clip, Commissioner Sanghvi asserts that she is working hard on a plan. I noted to her that her predecessor, Michele Madigan, was quite concerned about how the city would deal with this. It is hard to see in this video clip, but at this point, Commissioner Sanghvi shook her head and smiled in an unfortunate manner that documented her dismissal of both myself and Madigan. People watching this video will note me saying at this point that I am happy I am amusing her.

She then asserted that she had spoken to Madigan, who she claimed had said nothing about it. She went on belittling Madigan by going on about this is a democracy, and everyone has a right to their opinion. She also said she would contact Madigan.

Sanghvi did contact Madigan, but rather than solicit her advice on the implications of the firefighter grant, she simply told Madigan, as she did me, that she was working on a plan.

It is also worth noting that she observed that she has not yet even begun working on this year’s budget.

She doesn’t seem to grasp that she should have considered how the city would handle maintaining the firefighters as required by the grant before she supported and accepted it.

I am deeply worried about the city’s finances, and the fact that she refuses to even acknowledge simple questions about how she plans to handle the costs of the firefighters is truly chilling. I believe that this city is headed toward a real fiscal crisis.

Commissioner Sanghvi Unable To Properly Manage City Website

The Commissioner of Finance also oversees the IT department, which is responsible for, among other things managing the city website. The city’s website is an important window into city hall. Unfortunately, on Sanghvi’s watch, the city website has experienced numerous problems, from simply being inaccessible to links that don’t work and documents and videos of meetings that are not posted on a timely basis, if at all.

I have repeatedly documented problems with the IT department under Sanghvi:

Here, here, and here.

Most recently, in this post, I documented that the IT department failed to include the resolution establishing the fee schedule for outdoor dining that was supposed to be linked to the agenda. In spite of her failure to provide the resolution and in spite of the fact that both Mayoral candidate Chris Mathiesen and I complained during the public comment period about the missing resolution, the entire Council voted to adopt it anyway.

Confusion Over No Knock Warrants On City Website

The problems that arise when the website is not properly updated were apparent at the April 18 City Council meeting when considerable confusion arose over the proposal initially put forward by Mayor Kim to ban “no-knock warrants.”

The city posts the upcoming City Council agendas on the Friday before City Council meetings. On the day of the Tuesday, April 18, meeting, Public Works Commissioner Jason Golub met with Kim to discuss his objections to a resolution that had been crafted by Kim on no-knock warrants and posted on that night’s City Council agenda. Kim’s resolution called for a complete ban on no-knock warrants as originally called for by the Task Force on Police Reform. Golub supported the general concept but argued that there are circumstances where the target of the warrant could be armed and dangerous, so knocking on the door puts the police at risk. Kim agreed to change his resolution to limit warrants to these situations rather than propose a total ban.

Granted, the change occurred on the same day as the meeting. Still, it made a mockery of properly informing the public of impending city action, i.e., the adoption of the resolution. Unfortunately, the IT department did not post the revised resolution on the City Council’s agenda to properly inform the public as to what the Council would actually be voting on. People addressing the Council during the public comment period had no idea that they were commenting on the wrong resolution. Mayor Kim, for some reason, did not bother to advise speakers that the resolution they were addressing had changed.

I expect there were people who wanted a complete ban and would not have been happy with the revision, but they were not informed of the change before they spoke during the public comment period.

Sanghvi should have either:

  1. Seen to it that the change to the agenda was updated before the meeting or
  2. Insisted that the item, which was not time-sensitive, be tabled until the next Council meeting so IT could ensure the public could be informed of the change. She should also have informed the entire Council that in the future, she would call for tabling any changed resolution that the IT department had not been given sufficient time to inform the public about.

When the Council reached the point in the agenda to discuss Kim’s “No-Knock Warrant,” Commissioner Montagnino protested that the public was unaware of the change. Sanghvi was silent, and she, along with Kim, Moran, and Golub, proceeded to vote as though there was no problem.

To this day, the agenda on the city’s webcast archive page has the wrong resolution still posted on the agenda.

Small wonder that the Daily Gazette headline inaccurately stated, “City bans no-knock warrants,” as it apparently drew on the obsolete agenda item for the story. BLM apparently did not understand the changes that were made in the resolution at the meeting either, as they continue to boast that they got no-knock warrants banned in the city when they didn’t.

The only way anyone can find out what was actually in the resolution that passed is to wade through the minutes of the meeting or listen to the video to hear Ron Kim read the amended version.

Sometimes The Whole Website Is Inaccessible

On April 29, 2023, the city’s website was down, a problem that has repeatedly occurred. Clicking on the city’s website URL resulted in this:

Broken Links

On April 30, I tried to look up an item on the city’s website. The search produced a relevant item, but when I clicked on it and tried to read the document, I received the following error (a broken link):

“We are sorry there is not a web page matching your entry. Pleases use the search option to help locate this information on our redesigned site.” As the search function produced this error, it wasn’t very helpful.

I then randomly did more searches, and every one produced this error.

Lost Video

As recorded in a previous post, the March 8, 2023, meeting of the Design Review Commission was apparently lost or never recorded, never to be retrieved. It should have been possible to reconstruct what happened at the meeting and at least put up minutes so the public could be informed as to what transpired. It is now over two months later, and Commissioner Sanghvi has taken no action to get something up.

Commissioner Sanghvi’s cavalier attitude toward these continued breakdowns belies her repeated self-congratulations on how transparent she and her office are.

Missing Videos On The City’s “Web Archive Page”

I made my living as a computer programmer, building interfaces that were easy to understand and navigate. The city’s website suffers from a classic design failure. It duplicates the locations of important data without rigorously ensuring that the information is always synchronized.

For a more thorough explanation of this, along with the fact that Commissioner Sanghvi has been repeatedly advised about the problem but has not taken corrective action, these are links to the relevant posts here and here.

The Failure To Maintain The Website Just Keeps Going On

Several people have recently put up comments on this blog asking, “Where are the videos?”

I checked the website, and sure enough, the video of the April 14 pre-agenda council meeting had not been posted on the “webcast archive” page when I checked on April 29, 15 days later, even though it was available to Sanghvi’s staff for posting the day after the meeting. This is in spite of sending her the following email.

Commissioner Sanghvi:

Can you explain why the IT department continues to fail to update the video link on the archive page to be in synch with the “Live Meetings Page.”  This has been brought to your attention repeatedly but it seems to have no effect.

JK

April 20, 2023 email

On April 25, 2023, Sanghvi responded as follows:

Dear Mr. Kaufmann,

You may find agendas and videos from all city meetings here: https://www.saratoga-springs.org/2637/Live-Meeting-Menu

This automatically uploaded page cited above is the quickest way for the public to view meetings. Other parts of the website are updated regularly; however, our staff must wait for the vendor to provide the recordings that are manually posted. Our staff strives to be diligent about these uploads but there are times when they must attend to cybersecurity programming, equipment maintenance, staff training, and other tasks. It is for that reason we’ve relied on the link above, so that we can ensure the highest level of transparency.

We have provided you this link in previous emails but you insist on finding meetings elsewhere. I can’t cure that. My professor often said, you can take the horse to the water, you cannot make it drink. 

Minita Sanghvi
Commissioner of Finance
Saratoga Springs, NY
518-587-3550
minita.sanghvi@saratoga-springs.org

This email is both troubling and indicative of how Commissioner Sanghvi responds to issues that are raised with her. Note that I was not asking her about where the video was but advising her that her office was failing to update the webcast archive in a timely manner. Her reply informing me that I could find the video on the city’s Live Meetings Page is astonishing in its irrelevance to my email. It is as though she never read my email or she wanted to deflect criticism from the legitimate problem with her website management.

Her assertion that her staff does not have time to update the site in a timely manner indicates that it is simply not important to her. It also exposes her basic ignorance of the IT operation. Updating the link on the webcast page takes only minutes. The fact that her predecessor, Michele Madigan, was able to properly maintain the webcast archive for ten years should be proof that it can be done.

It is inexplicable to me why Commissioner Sanghvi apparently is uninterested in establishing procedures to ensure timely management of the site. It raises serious questions as to what other activities for which she is responsible are being ignored.

Commissioner Sanghvi Is Oblivious To What It Means To Manage The City’s Website.

So it is no surprise that not only was she criticized by the city’s ethics board because links to her and Mayor Kim’s campaign pages were posted on the city’s website but that even after that, a link to her campaign site appeared yet again.

As has happened in the past, instead of taking responsibility, Commissioner Sanghvi posted on the city’s webpage a statement blaming a staff person for the error.

Sangvhi did not explain who was responsible for posts from her campaign page appearing before this on the city website.

While it is true that people make mistakes, the problems with the city website are so common and so chronic that it is a small wonder that she has a poorly trained staff member who does not understand the procedures they are supposed to follow. The essential problem is poor management.

Minita Sangvhi Goes All In with Moran and Kim In Their Feud With Montagnino

Is The Public Served By More Media Coverage of the Petty and Foolish Conflicts Among Our Public Officials?

Saratoga Springs Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi went to WRGB TV in an apparent embarrassing attempt to polish her credentials as a staunch ally of Mayor Ron Kim and Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran in their dispute with Public Safety Commissioner James Montagnino.

Commissioner Sanghvi shared with WRGB TV her criticism of Commissioner Montagnino over the presence of police standing by in the stairwell to the Music Hall as a raucous Black Lives Matters demonstration was disrupting the City Council meeting on May 2.

She felt the police presence at the May 2nd meeting was unnecessary use of police overtime.

“Seven or eight police officers in the back staircase, I don’t think they were needed, nobody seemed to be showing signs of violence,” said Sanghvi. “There were Kids protesting, but that’s what kids do, they protest.”

Channel 6 News May 16, 2023

According to Commissioner Sanghvi, the mayor’s office is requesting that Montagnino provide a report showing police overtime hours for council meetings.

channel 6 News May 16, 2023

Tone Deaf

With all due respect, Commissioner Sanghvi is no expert on risk assessment.

She appears somehow oblivious to the potential danger that exists when situations get out of control, as they did on May 2 when BLM demonstrators brought the City Council meeting once more to a halt. She ignores how other audience members might react to the protesters’ aggressive taunts and name-calling in this volatile situation.

Her dismissal of BLM’s behavior by saying, “They were kids protesting, but that’s what kids do, they protest,” sends an interesting message to Lex Figuereo who is in his mid-thirties and probably doesn’t see the BLM protests as a playful, somewhat frivolous adolescent experiment.

It is rather stunning that Commissioner Sanghvi does not see the potential for someone being hurt in this polarized world we now live in. It appears that for her, the events of May 2 were just innocent theater that no one should find upsetting. The idea that some disturbed person might be prompted to commit an act of violence against the public attending the meeting, members of the Council, or BLM is lost on her.

Her animus with Commissioner Montagnino seems to have blinded her to the fact that Chief Crooks deployed the men and women of the police department because he reasonably believed that the situation could put the lives of everyone, including Commissioner Sanghvi, at risk.

Making the situation even more strange is Mayor Kim’s contradictory behavior in all this. The now infamous epithet-laden confrontation between Kim and the Deputy Commissioner of Public Safety was over Kim’s allegation that he had been threatened in an email sent by an individual who, it turns out, routinely attends Council meetings. In fact, he was in attendance at the May 2 meeting. Given their fears (baseless or not), you would think that Sanghvi, Kim, and Moran would have been relieved to know that the police would be available.

Sanghvi’s alleged sudden concern with overtime expenses for police is also hard to take seriously when Sanghvi has repeatedly had no problem approving payments for all sorts of dubious additions to the city’s budget including additions to other Council members’ staff and her own staff, payments of all kinds of legal bills as the Mayor pursues frivolous lawsuits, and of course redecorating her office.

No, this TV appearance seems to truly be nothing more than a petty continuation of the alliance of Kim, Sanghvi, and Moran against Public Safety Commissioner Montagnino.

City Ethics Board Finds Commissioner Sanghvi and Mayor Kim Violated City Ethics Standards

[I received the following two releases from Mike Brandi, the chair of the Saratoga Springs Republican Committee. Brandi had submitted a complaint to the city’s ethics board against Mayor Ron Kim and Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi, who had violated the city’s ethics code by putting links to their campaign websites on the city’s Facebook page.

As the complaint was made in February and as the decision was issued on May 17, 2023, the amazing thing is that Sanghvi, who oversees the city’s IT department, had yet another post on the city website that linked to her campaign website this morning (May 22, 2023). It was only up for fifteen minutes.]



From: Michael Brandi mbrandilaw@gmail.com
Sent: Monday, May 22, 2023 10:43 AM
To: Michael Brandi
Subject: Saratoga Springs Press Release follow-up
Attachments: image0 (4).jpeg

Good morning again,

Shortly after my press release this morning, the City yet again shared a post to the official City Facebook page from Commissioner Minita Sanghvi’s partisan political page. This is in spite of the admonishment by the Board of Ethics that such conduct violates the Code of Ethics, and despite advice rendered to the City by the United States Office of Special Counsel regarding the City’s obligations under the federal Hatch Act, which prohibits the use of official resources for partisan purposes.

While the post has since been deleted, it is clear that the City’s safeguards are woefully insufficient and that there is little regard for ethical and legal obligations under the current City administration.

Please let me know if you have any questions or would like to discuss further.

Yours,

Mike Brandi

Virus-free.www.avast.com

BLM Activist Takes Dillon Moran To Task For his Discourteous Behavior To The Blogger

[Alfred E. Newman asks, “What Me Worry?“]

As background, I spent over a month trying to get information from Saratoga Springs Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran about his plans for temporary outdoor dining. Moran originally promised to answer a set of questions I sent him. Following that original email, I wrote to him each week asking what the status of his answers was. All my emails were courteous. Each week he cited other demands on him and promised to provide me with answers soon. After the fourth week, he stopped acknowledging my emails, and I gave up writing to him.

On May 16, 2023, there was a City Council meeting. Moran had two items on his agenda for that meeting regarding outdoor dining. One was a public hearing on amending the temporary outdoor dining ordinance’s season closing date, and the other was to establish the fee schedule for temporary outdoor dining.

A Simple Question

I decided to attend the May 16 meeting and ask Commissioner Moran a simple question in person. What is the starting date for outdoor dining for 2023?

Here is how he responded to my inquiry.

An Unexpected Ally

As it turned out, I was not the only one struck by Moran’s unpleasant behavior. Here is a clip of Andrew (an anonymous commenter says his name is not Andrew) from Black Lives Matter speaking.

Why It’s Not Just About Me

Mayor Kim should have interceded and asked Moran to “dial it back.” The issue is that Moran not only sent an unfortunate message to this blogger, he, in effect, sent out a poisonous warning to anyone wishing to address the Council. If you disagree with him, you are the potential target of his anger.

Commissioner Moran, There Is No Starting Date

Notwithstanding Commissioner Moran’s imperious pronouncement that the starting date I was looking for is in the legislation, it is not there. Below I have published the full city code on temporary dining, and if readers are skeptical, they are welcome to try to find it themselves. As the ordinance has a hard closing date (November 1, 2022), it seemed reasonable that there would be a starting date.

What Is The Significance Of The Starting Date?

The starting date is important for many reasons.

First of all, it raises legal issues about whether the restaurants, some of which are already open, are operating within the law. Have they opened prior to the official starting date for the season (a date that doesn’t exist)?

What kind of liability do the city and the restaurants have given this apparent mess?

Exacerbating the situation is that the application that they filled out had the fee schedule for last year (2022), and according to Moran’s agenda, there is a new fee schedule. Does that invalidate the application? Can an application containing the wrong fee schedule be approved? Did the restaurants pay the city the outdated amount when they submitted the application? If the city approved the application already, can the city now ask the restaurants to pay more (assuming the fees go up)?

Unfortunately, as demonstrated by the video clip, Commissioner Moran will not answer questions from the public, and his colleagues at the Council table are apparently unwilling to press the issue.

Temporary outdoor dining, which is obviously a potential asset to the city, is, unfortunately, a black box that only Commissioner Moran has access to.

Commissioner Sanghvi: Where Is The Resolution?

Consistent with the management problems that plague the city website overseen by Commissioner Sanghvi, the agenda for the meeting did not include the resolution establishing the temporary outdoor dining fees. The agenda item was there, but clicking on the link resulted in a message that there was no available document (the actual resolution).

I have given up bringing problems with the website to Commissioner Sanghvi as she has made it abundantly clear that she is unconcerned with the issues I raise.

As those old enough to remember Alfred E. Newman of Mad Magazine, Commissioner Sanghvi seems to live in a “What me worry?” universe.

I urged the Council to table the fee schedule resolution until the resolution can be published and the public can have the opportunity to read it. This did no good. Later in the meeting, Moran moved the adoption of the fees, and following Public Works Commissioner Golub’s second, it was unanimously adopted.

As Commissioner Sanghvi has still not updated the agenda with the actual resolution, if you want to know what the new fee schedule is, you will have to endure watching the video of the full meeting to find the point at which Dillon discussed them. Even then, the presentation was poorly done, and you will have, I think, as I did, little idea of what the fees are and how they were arrived at.

City Code On Outdoor Dining

Here is the ordnance from the city website. See if you can find a starting date.

Time To End The Toxicity In City Hall

kids argue fight with friend

The recent video showing Saratoga Springs Mayor Ron Kim in an uncontrollable rage shouting expletives at the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner of Public Safety has gone viral and exposed the darkness that overshadows our city.

For those of us who have been following the City Council’s antics, we know that every member of the current Council has contributed to the decline in civility. Accounts Commissioner Moran, Public Safety Commissioner Montagnino, and Mayor Kim have been the most bitter and aggressive. Still, Finance Commissioner Sanghvi’s and Public Works Commissioner Golub’s passivity have, in their own way, empowered the other three.

The reality is that if these three so easily indulge themselves in verbally abusing their colleagues at the Council table, think about what kind of liberties they must take when dealing with the employees who work under them. We have some proof of this in the expletive-filled emails directed at employees by Mayor Kim as revealed by recent FOILs that can be found at the end of this post.

It should be no surprise then that the regional president of the union to which most employees in the city belong has written the following letter to Mayor Kim with cc’s to the other Council members and the city’s Human Resources Administrator. It characterizes the environment in city hall as toxic.

There are also several lawsuits pending against Council members regarding the “hostile work environment.”

Can This Council Change?

Mayor Kim’s statement to Saratoga Today only serves to document how deep and intransigent the problem is. His toxic emails with their f-bombs threatening employees are chilling and are included at the end of this post.

Sadly, Mayor Kim seems to live in a kind of bubble removed from both facts and the pain his behavior causes. This is what he told Saratoga Today

“They asked for every single email that I ever sent. So, I think that’s a pretty low percentage. I’m not excusing myself, but sometimes you see something and that’s how I react.” 

Ron Kim to Saratoga Today May 12, 2023

As for facts, the FOIL that produced Kim’s ugly emails did not request all of his emails as he alleges, just as the police who he had encountered prior to the meeting were not wearing riot gear as he asserted.

Here is the actual FOIL:

More dangerously, in spite of the wide condemnation of his behavior, Kim obstinately reserves the right to cast away restraint in the future. (“…you (sic) see something and that’s how I react.”)

As our Mayor, Ron Kim represents the citizens of this city. Despite the stressful situations he encounters as Mayor, the people who elected him deserve to have confidence he will have the self-discipline to maintain his dignity even under the most trying circumstances.

With his position of power, Kim holds a special trust regarding those who serve under him. They must have confidence that they will not be subjected to scorn and humiliation. His behavior in his encounter with Deputy Commissioner Tetu and Commissioner Montagnino was simply inexcusable. Worse, the baseless and withering attacks he and Montagnino directed at former Director of Risk and Safety Marilyn Rivers (she is suing the city), a dedicated and highly respected employee, was not only reckless and cruel, but it also had to spread fear all through city hall with employees wondering whether they might have to endure what Ms. Rivers did.

Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran also has an unfortunate record himself. He was successfully sued by one of his employees over workplace incidents. He routinely indulges in insulting remarks at the Council table. Calling Commissioner Montagnino a “psychopath” drew whoops and cheers from his Black Lives Matter supporters but only made the atmosphere required to carry out the Council’s deliberations impossible.

Similarly, Finance Commissioner Sanghvi played to the BLM people by complaining that Commissioner Montagnino had not informed her that there would be a risk at the meeting requiring the police. As Montagnino was the target of the night, this was an opportunity to show her credentials to her allies Kim and Moran by piling on.

In the meantime, the police quietly stood for hours in a stairwell. Far from the narrative put forward by BLM that they were all murderers, they were there to protect the Council, the public, and the BLM activists. In spite of the chaos in the Council meeting room, with BLM chanting and waving banners, the police waited patiently in the event they might be needed.

Sanghvi’s unfortunate remarks at the expense of the men and women who spent the night trying to protect her were just one more unfortunate aspect of the evening.

It is time to return order and civility to the Council table and to city hall.

Mayor Kim does not seem to have the skill set required to chair the Council meetings.

A responsible chair’s duty is to facilitate the thoughtful deliberations of the Council so they can do the city’s business.

To do this, he must constrain his colleagues from any behavior that would promote unnecessary hostility by insisting on the highest standards of conduct.

When a chair (KIm) fails to meet these obligations, he/she needs for others at the table to intercede and insist on courtesy. In fact, it is the responsibility of every member of the Council to do so. I have yet to see any member of the current Council play that role.

Black Lives Matter Issue

Given the sympathy of most people for black Americans regarding the violence nationally against them so tragically seen regularly on television and epitomized by the murder of George Floyd, it is understandable that the public would be supportive of a local group that characterizes itself as being dedicated to racial justice.

Up until recently, Black Lives Matter has shown great skill in shaping their narrative in the media to tap into this sympathy.

Most people assume that the local BLM tactics are an extension of the tradition of Martin Luther King’s non-violent tactics. But Reverend King always championed love and forgiveness in his militancy. I have written about the contrast between King’s approach and the current local leadership of BLM in previous posts.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Martin Luther King

While BLM frequently quotes King on the need to be prepared to say and do things that make people uncomfortable, they clearly eschew King’s dedication to love vs hate.

Lexis Figuereo, his sister Chandler Hickenbottom, and the other leaders have expressed disdain over calls for them to show restraint and courtesy. They clearly believe that the only way to make change is to pour taunts and insults on people in power. Their protests are marked by the profound anger they feel and by their sense of entitlement to unleash that anger.

For an example of just how intense that anger can be, I offer the following video clip of Lex Figuereo.

Here Figuereo engages in an expletive-laden and belligerent challenge to a black Schenectady minister over his participation in a “Back The Blue” demonstration. In this case, the police had to intercede to avoid what appeared to be potential violence. Figuereo refers to the minister as a “fu*&ing coon,” “fu*&ing house nigger,” etc. His fury is palpable.

In contrast to this kind of toxic outburst, the narrative BLM offers to the media is that they are simply exercising their right to free speech and that any attempt to limit them in terms of the City Council’s rules for public comment is an act of oppression.

One cannot deny their willingness to pursue this strategy in spite of the potential for arrest. They have the courage of their convictions.

With respect, I seriously question the effectiveness of this approach. I share King’s view that the tactics by which a movement struggles are as important as the ends for which it struggles. However laudable one’s goals are, the manner people choose to achieve those goals will be undermined by tactics that are inconsistent with those goals (“Darkness cannot drive out darkness”).

King was also ready to seriously engage his skeptics in thoughtful dialogue. He knew that change would only come by convincing skeptics of the value of that change. Without broad public support beyond his organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, there would be no progress.

Deja Vu All Over Again

So the central question for people like myself is, are the tactics employed by BLM expanding public support for change and achieving their goals?

My sense is that, to the contrary, they have squandered the support that existed initially in response to George Floyd’s death. The huge, diverse crowd that filled Congress Park following Floyd’s murder is gone. The small group that shows up to disrupt the Council meetings has not expanded.

While Figuerreo likes to boast that nothing they wanted got done until they returned to being disruptive this year, a closer look at what they say they’ve achieved doesn’t support this.

The Council finally did appoint a Civilian Review Board. Still, those appointments were ironically delayed when the Council meeting was shut down after Chandler Hickenbottom refused to give up the microphone during the public comment period and began addressing the Council by promising to “rip you a new one.” And while BLM has claimed victory for the passage of a Council policy on no-knock warrants, it was not the ban the Police Review Task Force had asked for but instead a restriction that is similar to the policy that already exists on the state and national level. Similarly, a proposal brought to the table by Commissioner Sanghvi to implement a Task Force proposal to apply assets seized in “controlled substance arrest and criminal activity” to “city-based programming for the treatment of addiction, homelessness, and other restorative justice initiatives…” noted that this was to be done “to the extent allowed by existing New York State statutory requirements”. The problem is, as the previous Council was castigated for trying to point out, NY state does not allow this kind of dispersal of seized assets. Commissioner Sanghvi’s resolution was essentially meaningless and subsequently withdrawn.

What BLM has evolved to instead is a groundhog day drama. The same people show up and indulge in the same practices and the same slogans. Other than disrupting the ability of the Council to transact its business and the occasional videos on local television, little is accomplished.

Time For A New Approach

The chaos and anger engendered by the BLM protests need to end. The disruption of the Council’s deliberations only contributes to the toxicity that is corroding city hall.

What is needed now is for BLM to adhere to the same rules of addressing the City Council that for years have been the standard: two minutes at the microphone plus silent courtesy for other speakers.

Commissioner of Public Safety candidate Tim Coll has observed that the state legislature and some cities in New York State employ a sergeant at arms to address disruptive behavior at public meetings. Trained, independent men and women who are not political and who are knowledgeable about the behavior allowed by the NY State Open Meetings law (comments should not be “abusive, threatening, profane, or in any way illegal”) are empowered to escort members of the public who become unruly from council chambers.

I agree with Coll that our City Council needs to incorporate a sergeant-at-arms into city meetings, and Mayor Kim needs to allow that sergeant-at-arms to fulfill his/her responsibilities.

Summing Up

  1. Mayor Kim needs to acknowledge that he has an anger management problem and needs to seek assistance.
  2. Mayor Kim needs to insist that his colleagues maintain a civil and respectful manner in addressing each other. In the event that there is a breach of etiquette, he needs to use the power of the chair to intercede and insist on decorum.
  3. The council needs to employ a sergeant at arms with the authority to remove members of the public who violate the protocols for city meetings.

Documenting The Toxic Environment In City Hall

A Letter From The City’s Union

This letter is from the regional president of the CSEA to the members of the City Council expressing concern about the environment in city hall.

The following emails from Mayor Kim target a city employee for some kind of retribution using profanities.

Email #1

The following email from Tony Izzo clarifies that the email above was directed to at an employee.

Email #2

Kim had apparently asked a DPW employee about the cost and availability of the casino and of High Rock Park for some kind of event. The employee sent him the pamphlet that includes the fees. The following email documents Kim’s reaction.

In any other institution behavior like this would be grounds for termination.

Kim’s Profane Riddled Meltdown In City Hall

By now most everyone in the city has seen the video of Mayor Kim’s outbursts against Deputy Public Safety Commissioner Tetu. The police had advised Kim, in effect, that he had exagerated the threat of emails he had received and they did not merit police action.

The Basic Functioning Of Our City Council Is Breaking Down

The May 4, 2023, meeting of the Saratoga Springs City Council was a continuance of the May 2 meeting Mayor Kim adjourned after Black Lives Matter demonstrators disrupted the proceedings. In yet a further escalation of the breakdown of our city government, a new alliance (they are constantly shifting) of Finance Commissioner Sanghvi, Accounts Commissioner Moran, and Mayor Kim refused to approve resolutions on Public Safety Commissioner Montagnino’s agenda. In fact, the three Council members refused to even offer a second to any motion Montagnino made.

Among Montagnino’s resolutions that failed to find a second were two change orders for work being done on the new firehouse. These change orders have, in the past, been approved without debate. Consider this video from a January, 2023, meeting.

Not so at the May 4 meeting. Here is one of the resolutions they refused to second.

People familiar with construction projects know that change orders are hardly unusual. It is unclear how serious the impact of refusing the work order will be. In some cases, other work may not be possible when required work is delayed. It is also unclear what this delay may cost the city. The three members of the Council, by refusing to provide a second to Montagnino’s resolution, deprived the public of any discussion that might have revealed what impact denying these work changes might have.

Watching the Mayor and two Commissioners, it was apparent that they had planned this before the meeting as some kind of retribution.

Following the rejections of the Montagnino resolutions, the three Commissioners complained that they had not been informed about the reason for the changes and offered numerous examples of what they described as the unwillingness of Montagnino to communicate with them. Conspicuously absent was any explanation as to why the three had approved similar changes in the past with no resistance.

This Council’s Subversion Of The Pre-Agenda Process

It has been the tradition of the City Council to hold a “pre-agenda” meeting on the Monday before each City Council meeting. This is where members of the Council would request clarifications on proposed resolutions in order to be able to thoughtfully discuss them at the regular meeting. In particular, in the past, Council members often asked their colleagues to provide background information either during the pre-agenda meeting or before the Council meeting, so they could be prepared for the discussions and votes. At times staff members would attend these meetings to answer questions from Council members on particular proposals.

With the current administration, this is no longer the case. These meetings are now brief to a fault and mostly symbolic. They have been reduced to each member simply reading their agenda items. For example, the pre-agenda meeting for the May 2 council meeting lasted only fifteen minutes. Perhaps City Council meetings would not go on for 5 hours if these Council members did their homework ahead of time.

Montagnino’s change orders were included in his proposed agenda. If the other members of the Council had reservations about Montagnino’s actions and needed more information, the pre-agenda meeting was the time to advise him of their reservations. None of the three asked any questions.

For them to then complain at the Council table that Montagnino had failed to provide them with information is simply not credible. This is especially true because there is an extensive record of these same Council members passing similar work change orders without comment, as documented above.

Denying Montagnino seconds to his resolutions was a new low in the factionalism that dominates this Council.

As further proof of the chaos, not only was the May 2nd meeting disrupted and had to be continued on May 4, but the Council was unable to complete their business even on the 4th and are scheduling yet another extension of the original meeting.

Rude and Unprofessional Behavior

I am not going to bother to include video of the name-calling and ugly behavior of the Council members at this meeting. I have thoroughly documented this in the past, and it seems like a pointless exercise to edit and post more of this stuff. A complete video of the meeting is on the city website for those who wish to watch. Suffice it to say, the current Council lives in a corrosive bubble and appears oblivious about the harm they are doing to each other and to the city.

Correction To Previous Blog On Mayor Kim’s Confrontation With Jason Tetu

This blog reported that Saratoga Springs Mayor Ron Kim had been referred to the police desk sergeant to make his complaint against someone who allegedly emailed threats to him and someone in his family. I wrote in the blog that the desk sergeant reviewed the emails and that none of them rose to the level of threat requiring police action, and this was what provoked Kim’s angry outburst in City Hall.

In fact, the video released by the police tells a slightly different story. Apparently, Kim first called Deputy Public Safety Commissioner Jason Tetu with his complaint, and Tetu told him to go to the desk sergeant. It was this response by Tetu that set the Mayor off. In the video, Kim shouts at Tetu “Is that all I get?” before going into his office and slamming the door.

Kim Doesn’t Understand

In our form of government, the Public Safety Commissioner is charged with overseeing the police and fire departments, but there is a distinct limit to that authority that Mayor Kim doesn’t seem to understand.

The Commissioner’s power does not extend to directing the police to make specific arrests. That responsibility remains with the “sworn officers.”

This makes sense. Consider the danger of a politician with no background in criminal law ordering the arrest of people?

Note that when Public Safety Commissioner Montagnino took action in the case of Chandler Hickenbottom for allegedly disrupting a Council meeting, he made a complaint to the Police Department. He did not order her arrest.

It is also troubling that Kim’s remark (“Is that all I get?”) implies that he believed Tetu should provide him some sort of special treatment from the Police Department.

Mayor Kim Loses It In City Hall Confrontation With Public Safety Deputy Jason Tetu

Saratoga Springs Police have released a video of Mayor Ron Kim in an epithet-laced rant at Public Safety Deputy Commissioner Jason Tetu and Public Safety Commissioner James Montagnino that took place in City Hall.

Apparently, Kim had received some emails that he considered threatening. He also claimed that the same person who sent these emails to him sent threatening emails to someone in his family.

Kim was referred to the police sergeant who handles complaints. Apparently, the sergeant, after reviewing the emails, said that they did not rise to the level of serious threat and declined to pursue the matter.

This prompted Kim to take his anger out by going to the Commissioner of Public Safety’s office where he confronted Public Safety Deputy Commissioner Jason Tetu with sufficiently abusive language that Tetu threatened to have Kim arrested.

Montagnino came out of his office and received additional abuse from Kim.

This is a link to the Saratoga Springs Police Department Facebook page containing the video.

Kim told the Times Union he planned to apologize.

Mayor Kim, the City Council, and Lex Figuereo– a Co-Dependent Relationship?

Another Aborted City Council Meeting. Everyone knew that the BLM group planned to disrupt the meeting. It was openly discussed at a meeting held on the Skidmore campus on April 26.

The May 2,2023, Saratoga Springs City Council meeting was once again so disruptive that it had to be adjourned. Mayor Kim, yet again, relinquished control of the meeting to Black Lives Matter. The members of the Council sat mostly passively, with the exception of unhelpful remarks by Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran toward Public Safety Commissioner James Montagnino and Montagnino taunting Mayor Ron Kim about his failure to take any action to bring order.

Interestingly, Mayor Kim began the meeting by moving the consent agenda from its normal position to have it voted on before the public comment period began. The consent agenda includes authorization to pay the city payroll. If this authorization is not taken care of, city employees cannot be paid. Mayor Kim also warned the BLM people present in the audience that he expected there would be “repercussions” (arrests) if the meeting were to be interrupted.

These actions suggest that Kim anticipated allowing the meeting to be shut down by a BLM demonstration.

The vote on the consent agenda was followed by two hours of public comment dominated almost exclusively by BLM activists and some Skidmore student allies repeating the usual litany of vituperative attacks directed primarily towards the Saratoga Springs Police Department, Commissioner Montagnino, and Saratoga Springs in general. When the meeting finally began the only item discussed and voted on was a Resolution on Restorative Justice that was on the Mayor’s agenda. This passed 4-1, with Montagnino voting no. After that, chaos broke out, with the BLM group chanting and shouting till Kim gave up and adjourned the meeting without any further city business being addressed.

It was an open secret that the BLM people planned to disrupt the Council meeting once again. Skidmore students were enlisted for the event at a meeting on the college campus on April 26.

Some media coverage, however, reported that the demonstration that precipitated the Mayor’s adjournment was prompted by remarks made by Commissioner Montagnino. The Commissioner knew that the BLM had planned to disrupt the meeting, and Montagnino was smart enough to know he was being inflammatory when he accused the BLM people of being complicit in the vandalism of the Union soldier statue in Congress Park. It was a reckless and irresponsible remark. Still, the media coverage failed their readers by supporting the narrative espoused by Lexis Figuereo that they were just responding to Montagnino when BLM had in fact planned ahead of time to disrupt the meeting.

The Council meeting has been scheduled to reconvene on May 4 at 2:30.

A Sober And Critical Look At Kim’s Restorative Justice Resolution

Kim’s resolution on restorative justice grew out of the recommendations of the Saratoga Springs Police Reform Task Force appointed in 2020. It is useful to review this proposal in light of how others have addressed this issue.


[JK: I wanted to put a link to the resolution for this story, but as documented below, the link to the resolution is now unavailable. I will be discussing the breakdown of effective management of IT by Finance Commissioner Sanghvi in a later post, but here is a screenshot of this latest failure.]


The most famous campaign to address past injustice is the South African “Truth and Reconciliation” Commission, set up in 1995 in the aftermath of apartheid.  Nelson Mandela, the leader of the African National Congress (ANC), was key in creating this body.

The “Truth” part involved investigating and exposing and acknowledging the cruelty of a system where the opponents of apartheid were routinely tortured and murdered.  The “Reconciliation” part was to find a path forward to unite a nation where the victims of this cruelty could live with both their pain and with the white South Africans who supported these past policies.  In some cases, this involved the prosecution of those who committed serious crimes. 

Nelson Mandela, the leader of the ANC, set an example of reconciliation.  Brutalized by the police, he spent twenty-seven years in prison.  Yet upon his release, he showed no rancor.  His focus was on how to bring his nation back together and move forward.  His most important quality was his ability to inspire the people of South Africa to understand each other and to set a path to justice and compassion.

For Mandela, this process was not about apologizing.  It was instead about acknowledging the harm done and then finding ways to address those wounds. Addressing those wounds was not about worthless apologies but about identifying concretely the policies and institutions that needed change and identifying the people in authority who needed to acknowledge the problems and address them.

For sixteen years, I was the executive director of the Saratoga County Economic Opportunity Council (now called LifeWorks).  The last thing I wanted to hear from an employee who had screwed up was an apology.  What I wanted instead was an acknowledgment of the error and a plan to make sure it didn’t happen again.

Shame Is Not A Strategy. Guilt Is Not A Strategy

Conspicuously absent from Mayor Kim’s “restorative justice” resolution is any effort to take the first necessary step of doing the work to actually identify specific actions and policies that need to be acknowledged and addressed.  

Saratoga Springs exists within the United States. The fact that black people (and Jews, and Irish, and Italians, and women and others) were discriminated against throughout this country is axiomatic. A general apology for this history, however, takes us nowhere.

As with the South African example, identifying and acknowledging specific examples of racism, either individual cases or institutional cases, and providing proposals for addressing how these can be reformed is where the hope lies.  Blanket condemnations and vague apologies, as contained in Kim’s resolution, may bring enjoyment to some but do little to produce real change.

Our Local BLM

The reality is that Lex Figuereo and his allies are the polar opposite of Mandela.  Any reasonable observer of their tactics at City Council meetings can see that their goal is to humiliate and indulge in unrestrained rage.  Insulting elected officials is self-indulgent nonsense.  This picture of BLM people in front of Montagnino’s office is a testament to the infantile nature of so much of what they do.

BLM events are not really about politics; they are about psychodrama.  Michele Madigan, who served in the previous administration, put aside money for a mediator and offered to meet with Figuereo.  In the standard operating procedure for Figuereo, he strung her along only to refuse to participate.  Figuereo is not really interested in sitting down, identifying specific problems (truth), and seeking solutions.  Figuereo’s identity is invested in drama and media.

The narrative that if elected officials will just sit down with Figuereo and his allies that an accommodation can be achieved is a myth. 

The Missing Factor: Truth

BLM makes wild accusations about the city’s police.  If you listen to them, you would think that we were living in Alabama in the 1950s, that Bull Connor is the chief of police, and that any moment a phalanx of police armed with guns and dogs and tear gas are about to brutalize them.

Missing from their rants is substance-truth. If the police need further reform, it begins with BLM doing the hard work of actually documenting incidents of real abuse.  Without identifying examples of failure in police procedures with details of who, what, and where, there can be no corrective action.

Restorative Justice

Mayor Kim’s resolution calls for restorative justice. Let’s get beyond the culture wars and consider what restorative justice is.

“Restorative justice seeks to examine the harmful impact of a crime and then determines what can be done to repair that harm while holding the person who caused it accountable for his or her actions. Accountability for the offender means accepting responsibility and acting to repair the harm done.”

University of Wisconsin, Madison, Law School

In this definition, the process begins with identifying real events that are documented for the purpose of change.

Kim’s poorly crafted resolution misses the point about what restorative justice is. Instead, his nebulous resolution fits right into Figuereo et. al.’s playbook.  It calls for “…a community-wide dialogue with residents and institutions on defining what restorative justice means to Saratoga Springs in the 21st century.”  This amorphous charge can only lead to more confusion and conflict.

 The vague language in Mayor Kim’s restorative justice committee resolution is an exercise in noise and will result in little or no constructive findings.

An Odd Date For His Final Report

I find it particularly suspect, that Kim’s resolution would have his committee report its findings on December 19, 2023.  That date is conveniently after the city’s next election.

Kim, the other Council members and Figuereo are, as they say in popular culture, co-dependent.  With the exception of Public Works Commissioner Jason Golub, they all crave media coverage without substance.  They feed off each other.

Kim got his story into the Times Union about his plan to establish a “restorative justice committee” (no great feat), but that is all he has achieved.  This new committee (one of too many) will produce nothing.

Another Dysfunctional City Council Meeting Coming Up

With BLM planning to disrupt yet another Saratoga Springs City Council meeting, and Mayor Ron Kim abrogating his responsibility to ensure speakers have equal access to the microphone at the public comment period (see previous post—)this coming Tuesday night’s (5/2/2023)City Council meeting sadly promises to be yet another exercise in how not to govern.

A look at the agenda for the upcoming May 2 City Council meeting seems to indicate that current Council members are more interested in appearing in newspaper stories and on television than directing their time and energy to the job of actually governing our city.

Commissioner Sanghvi’s Fake Resolution

Case in point:

Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi will be offering a resolution that seems at first glance to promise to direct assets seized by police in controlled substances arrests to “City-based programming for the treatment of addiction, homelessness, and other restorative justice initiatives within the city of Saratoga Springs.”

According to Commissioner Sanghvi, the resolution is “in response to the Saratoga Springs Police Task Force 50-point initiative” that included this item. The city’s task force, readers will recall, was set up in 2020 in response to an Executive Order by then Governor Andrew Cuomo.

But Sanghvi’s resolution includes the following qualifying language:

To the extent allowed by existing New York Statutory requirements for the dispersal of property seized in controlled substance arrests and criminal activity…”

The clue that something is wrong is her use of the phrase “to the extent allowed.” So what is the “extent allowed?”

Bizarrely, her resolution has a whereas clause that cites “New York State Civil Practice Laws and Rules (CPLR) Section 1349 – Disposal of Property” regarding the meaning of “extent allowed.”

I say bizarrely because the statute she cites specifically limits the use of these funds to only “law enforcement purposes.” In other words, it precludes using the money for the very purposes Commissioner Sanghvi cites in her resolution.

That this dispersal of funds is not allowed should come as no surprise to those of us who followed the Police Reform Task Force’s recommendations that included this promised dispersal of money as number 41 of the 50 proposals of their “Reinvention Plan” . At the time, Police Chief Shane Crooks told the Task Force that this proposal for the use of seized assets violated state law. He was seen by Task Force members as an obstructionist rather than a truth-teller.

At a minimum, Commissioner Sanghvi’s resolution is misleading. A less generous assessment would be that she is trying to fool the public in general and the Black Lives Activists in particular, into thinking that she is fulfilling the Police Task Force’s proposal when she is clearly not because the truth is that this proposal cannot legally be fulfilled.

Commissioner Moran: An Incoherent Resolution

Case #2

Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran has placed this item on the consent agenda for the May 2, 2023, Council meeting.

The heading of the item provides some clue as to its purpose: “Temporary Outdoor Dining Committee-Approved Applications” So this is probably about approving the restaurants/bars listed at the end of the document.

The consent agenda is normally reserved for items that require approval but are noncontroversial, like the authorization to fund the city’s payroll or payment authorized by a contract that had been approved by the Council.

As readers will observe, this item, though, begins with a statement that allegedly the applications for outdoor dining have been reviewed and approved by a variety of city departments. In previous posts, I documented that I had unsuccessfully asked Commissioner Moran for some kind of documentation regarding the signoff by the Fire Department on applications for outdoor dining permits. I also FOILed for such documents and was advised they do not exist. Moran may or may not have received informal approval of these applications, but consistent with his casual approach to governing, he failed to set up a procedure to document this process.

So we only have the Commissioner’s word for it that these reviews and approvals actually took place.

In addition there is no language stating what a vote on this item by the Council will accomplish. There is no wording for instance saying “Therefore, the Saratoga Springs City Council approves the applications of the following establishments.”

Then there is this statement:

“The Department of Accounts has noted any department conditions as part of the outdoor dining permit.”

Reader, I challenge you to explain the purpose of this sentence. There is no explanation as to what these conditions are nor which applications they are related to.

Finally, we get a list of five dining/drinking facilities with no explanation as to why they are listed. I guess they may be applications that Moran claims are in order and require Council approval, but there is no language that would indicate that in adopting this item, the Council is approving them.

Finally, demonstrating just how sloppily this was crafted, the title says that these applications were approved by the “Temporary Outdoor Dining Committee.” The problem is that the “committee” no longer exists. Moran previously pushed through an amendment to the code dissolving them.

I feel confident that this item was crafted by Moran himself and that he didn’t bother to consult with Tony Izzo, the City Attorney or the new Assistant City Attorney.

Montagnino’s Pointless Resolution

Case 3:

Public Safety Commissioner James Montagnino also has a peculiar agenda item. This one is calling for an amendment to the city code to make the carrying of a firearm while drunk a violation.

My contacts in law enforcement have characterized this proposal as “unenforceable”. The foot patrols that try to maintain order on Caroline Street do not carry breathalyzers. It is not illegal to be drunk and an officer would not have the right to frisk an individual to see if they were carrying a gun. Penalties already exist if a gun is in the possession of someone involved in another violation such as drunk driving so this proposal adds nothing to existing law.

This is all about Montagnino’s eternal quest for media and not about seriously dealing with guns.

Why Can’t They Just Do Their Jobs?

This Council suffers from excessive drama and a lack of sound management and judgement. I fear we will be paying the price for this for years to come.